SpaceX makes its point with Falcon 9 launch

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch made for spectacular viewing on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. The rocket is carrying an SES communications satellite into geostationary orbit.
Florida Today

Successful commercial launch of rocket blazes firm's new trail.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. The rocket, carrying a telecommunications satellite for SES, lifted off after being delayed for several days.(Photo: Craig Bailey, Florida Today)

On Tuesday, the company achieved another milestone when its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket deployed its first commercial communications satellite into an orbit high above Earth, 33 minutes after a beautiful twilight liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

It was the third attempt in nine days to launch the broadcasting satellite for Luxembourg-based SES, one of the world's largest satellite operators, but ultimately it signaled SpaceX's readiness to take on a $2.4 billion market dominated by international competitors.

"The successful insertion of the SES-8 satellite confirms the upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle delivers to the industry's highest performance standards," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a statement.

Earlier Tuesday, Musk had thanked SES for taking a chance on the Falcon 9, which had launched six times before but only once in its new configuration with more powerful engines and a 43-foot payload fairing.

About two-thirds of SpaceX's 50 contracted launches are for commercial customers, but the Falcon 9 had not yet placed a large communications satellite more than 22,000 miles over the equator where many of them operate.

Martin Halliwell, the chief technology officer for SES, had said a successful mission would "shake the industry to its roots," with other satellite operators and launch providers watching closely to see if SpaceX could deliver on its promise.

A small crowd north of the Cocoa Beach Pier watches the launch of the SpaceX from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, carrying a communications satellite.(Photo: Malcolm Denemark, Florida Today)

It did.

The 224-foot Falcon 9 rumbled off its Launch Complex 40 pad with 1.3 million pounds of thrust on time at 5:41 p.m.

Technical problems had stalled two attempts last week, after which SpaceX cleaned and replaced some parts of the rocket's nine first-stage Merlin 1D engines.

As the rocket climbed into clear skies, fading sunlight illuminated its twisting exhaust plume in orange and white, and the rocket appeared to leave a wake high above the Atlantic.

Observers could see the booster and payload fairing fall away.

But it was not until a half-hour later after liftoff that SpaceX confirmed the mission had passed a critical test.

That came when the upper stage engine reignited for a second burn — something it had failed to accomplish during a September test flight of what SpaceX calls "version 1.1" of the Falcon 9.

SpaceX and SES were confident that issue was resolved, but there was uncertainty until SpaceX confirmed on Twitter that the burn had been completed.

The same was true for separation of the 7,000-pound SES-8 satellite, whose initial trajectory took it more than 50,000 miles up.

The spacecraft in the weeks ahead will circularize its orbit and settle 22,300 miles over the equator in a "geostationary" orbit, where satellites match the speed of Earth's rotation and appear from the ground to stay in fixed positions.

The satellite will broadcast high-definition television channels to the Asia-Pacific region, which SES calls an important growth market.

The company credited SpaceX's lower-cost rocket for enabling it to pursue such markets.

SpaceX advertizes Falcon 9 launches for under $60 million, and SES received a discount as the first commercial customer to commit to the new rocket.

The launch — the first of a commercial satellite from Cape Canaveral in four years — made real the possibility that SpaceX could return significant numbers of those launches here.

For years, they have found more affordable alternatives in European or Russian rockets.

"I think it's going to have a pretty significant impact on the world launch market and on the launch industry," Musk said before the mission launched.

SpaceX hopes to launch another commercial satellite from the Cape before the year is out, for Thaicom.

Musk said SpaceX might try to recover that rocket's first stage from the ocean, depending in part on data collected during the SES-8 mission.

Tuesday's success also helped position SpaceX to compete for national security launches now flown exclusively by United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets.